Chief strategy and growth officer joins panel with leaders from Synchrony, NVIDIA, PwC, and Airwallex

OMAHA, Neb.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 19, 2026-- ACI Worldwide (NASDAQ:ACIW), an original innovator in global payments technology, today announced that chief strategy and growth officer Philip Bruno will speak on the “Agentic Commerce: When AI Starts Buying” panel at the MIT Sloan Fintech Conference on Friday, February 20, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The session examines a rapidly emerging frontier: a world where AI agents, not people, initiate discovery, comparison, and purchasing decisions across digital ecosystems. The panel brings together executives from Synchrony, Airwallex, PwC, and NVIDIA to explore how commerce, identity, and payments will evolve as software gains the ability to act autonomously on behalf of consumers.

Bruno will discuss how this shift places payments infrastructure and digital wallets at the centre of agentic commerce, and why systems that enforce trust and not just facilitate transactions will define competitive advantage.

“As AI becomes an active participant in commerce, the winners will be the companies that embed secure, intelligent wallet experiences directly into the merchant journey,” said Bruno. “Agentic systems only work when three things can be guaranteed: permission that can be verified, identity that persists across the entire transaction, and evidence that ensures a fair outcome when something goes wrong.”

The panel will explore:

• What’s working now: Zero‑click purchasing, interoperable wallet protocols, and early agent‑driven shopping flows
• What’s overhyped: Standalone bots, voice‑only interfaces, and isolated consumer agents
• What’s next: The battle for control of the consumer’s primary AI agent and how banks, networks, and merchants can stay visible in an increasingly automated checkout experience

Bruno’s perspective builds on ACI’s recent work showing that while workflow‑based applications may be disrupted by generative AI, deterministic payments infrastructure is strengthened, not replaced, by agentic technologies. AI enhances trust, fraud detection, exception handling, and transaction intelligence, but the underlying rules‑based systems remain essential for compliance, auditability, and safety.

The MIT Sloan Fintech Conference is one of the world’s largest student‑run fintech gatherings, convening hundreds of industry leaders, policymakers, founders, and students.

Bruno joined ACI Worldwide in January 2025 after more than two decades at McKinsey & Company, where he served as partner and co‑lead of the Global Payments Practice. He holds an MBA from New York University’s Stern School of Business and a bachelor’s degree in international relations from the University of Pennsylvania.

About ACI Worldwide

ACI Worldwide , an original innovator in global payments technology, delivers transformative software solutions that power intelligent payments orchestration in real time so banks, billers and merchants can drive growth, while continuously modernizing their payment infrastructures, simply and securely. With nearly 50 years of trusted payments expertise, we combine our global footprint with a local presence to offer enhanced payment experiences to stay ahead of constantly changing payment challenges and opportunities.

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Katrin Boettger | Communications and Corporate Affairs Director | katrin.boettger@aciworldwide.com
Pierce Rohrmann I Head of Communications and Corporate Affairs I pierce.rohrmann@aciworldwide.com

Source: ACI Worldwide